The End of the Internet Is Near

[Capper]

The end of the Internet is near — and in less than three years, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The reason? More than 85% of the available addresses have already been allocated and the OECD predicts we will have run out completely by early 2011.

These aren’t the normal web addresses you type into your browser’s window, and which were recently freed up by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the body responsible for allocating domain names, to allow thousands of new internet domains ending in, for instance, .newyork, .london or .xxx.

Beneath those names lie numerical Internet protocol addresses that denote individual devices connected to the internet. These form the foundation for all online communications, from e-mail and web pages to voice chat and streaming video.

When the current IP address scheme was introduced in 1981, there were fewer than 500 computers connected to the Internet. Its founders could be forgiven for thinking that allowing for a potential 4 billion would last for ever. However, less than 30 years later, the Internet is rapidly running out. Every day thousands of new devices ranging from massive web servers down to individual mobile phones go online and gobble up more combinations and permutations.

“Shortages are already acute in some regions,” says the OECD. “The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy.”

As addresses run dry we will all feel the pinch: Internet speeds will drop and new connections and services will either be expensive or simply impossible to obtain. The solution to the IP address shortage is an upgrade to new addresses that can accommodate our hunger for online connectivity. Such a system, called IPv6, was agreed more than a decade ago, providing enough addresses for billions upon billions of devices as well as improving Internet phone and video calls, and possibly even helping to end e-mail spam.

Report: The End of the Internet Is Near

[polobunny]

Unfortunately - and again like peak oil - just because we know what’s good for us that doesn’t mean we’ll do it. The OECD notes that “immediate costs are associated with deployment of IPv6, whereas many benefits are long-term and depend on a critical mass adopting it”. The problem is that the new system is not really compatible with the internet today. If, for example, Google wants to support IPv6, it will need to build a whole new IPv6 web service, complete with new domain names, servers and bandwidth.
And so the internet lurches on, patched with technology that may help it stagger through a few more years, but doomed to slow down unless big players such as Google, BT and governments start investing now.
Maybe at a philosophical level it’ll be a good thing if the internet packs up. We will all be able to shut down our computers and forget the 24/7 economy. I read recently that Stone Age man, with all his hunting and gathering and other chores, still worked only 22 hours a week.

AFAIK, Japan has been using IPv6 for a while. And guess what, it might have cost a lot, but it was necessary.

I can see the internet "dying" but not because of those reasons. Censorship is likely the reason why the internet as we know it would die. Many countries are already censoring the information their population is getting via the internet by blocking certain websites or type of websites. Many internet service providers are also censoring and shaping their traffic (blocking certain ports, blocking Peer to Peer protocols).

Soon enough, we'll only have access to the content our governements pre-approved. What does this mean? Not only will you read what they want you read, like you hear what they want you to hear on TV, but Internet won't be a "real-time" thing anymore.

[screwballl]

since IPv6 is compatible with everything from Windows 2000 on up (including Linux and OSX)... it is just a matter of people upgrading their servers to allow for IPv4 or 6 connections. I know at my work (an ISP) we are already starting to make the changes so more internal network connections use IPv6 and since the servers use BSD, it is a matter of telling them to use v6 over v4 and to talk with other internal servers this way.

I have been waiting to hear back from SMC about a way to update my router so the LAN connections use IPv6 but so far no response (from a person, always get those automated responses).

[drew and not u]

What's the point in using IPV6 for a LAN?

Originally Posted by polobunny

AFAIK, Japan has been using IPv6 for a while. And guess what, it might have cost a lot, but it was necessary.

I can see the internet "dying" but not because of those reasons. Censorship is likely the reason why the internet as we know it would die. Many countries are already censoring the information their population is getting via the internet by blocking certain websites or type of websites. Many internet service providers are also censoring and shaping their traffic (blocking certain ports, blocking Peer to Peer protocols).

Soon enough, we'll only have access to the content our governements pre-approved. What does this mean? Not only will you read what they want you read, like you hear what they want you to hear on TV, but Internet won't be a "real-time" thing anymore.

Totally agree! So depressing...

[screwballl]

There is all sorts of interesting information out there...

From a Cisco IPv6 executive summary:

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Defense defined an IPv6 migration process to be completed by 2008. Two years later, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget acknowledged the inevitability of this transition and mandated that all federal agencies
migrate their networks to IPv6 by June 2008. These initiatives follow developments worldwide.
In Asia, the evolution has already manifested. Japan, for example, has successfully deployed IPv6, using tax incentives to initiate adoption of this technology. Meanwhile, Europe is also integrating IPv6 into its IT strategy. The European Commission has
sponsored several IPv6-focused programs, including 6NET, a project designed to show the new protocol’s importance in the Internet’s future. Also, several European countries have national task forces dedicated to generating IPv6 recommendations for their governments.
The collective impact of these efforts is tremendous. Firstly, IPv6 removes the need for network address translation (NAT), a time-consuming, problematic technology that offers a work-around solution to IPv4’s addressing shortcomings. Secondly, it promises
advances in communications technologies, making them easier to use and bringing more robust collaborative capabilities to the marketplace. Essentially, IPv6 can overcome the limitations of IPv4 and reclaim the original intent of the global, end-to-end Internet model.

• Security—IPv6 is inherently less vulnerable to scanning attacks than IPv4 and possesses native capabilities for packet integrity. Additionally, it mandates that security is provided through information encryption and source authentication.

• Plug-and-play—IPv6 auto-configures new equipment to communicate with the network once it is detected, which means devices are ready to use right when needed.

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by screwballl

There is all sorts of interesting information out there...
[/list]

You should remove the quotes, so it looks like you came up with that info on your own, and then we can call you LeadHead.

[screwballl]

lol... another intersting bit was that in 2002, they said that we would run out of IP addresses by 2007

IPv6: time to change?: News - Communications - ZDNet Australia

05 November 2002
Keeping the current version of Internet Protocol, the world will run out of IP addresses by 2007. So is it time to move to IPv6?

[azianai]

we'll need al gore to invent more internet!

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by azianai

we'll need al gore to invent more internet!

Yeah he did such a fine job the first time.

[screwballl]

did some playing around and got IPv6 working on my network of mostly XP systems... even though the router does not support it...